IamA co-writer with my Son for "Blood of Invidia", a Dragon Award Finalist SciFi/Horror novel, in the cloud. We've never met. Ask Me Anything. AMA!

Your cover art is honestly one of the tackiest things I've seen in a long time. Does this concern you in that it could easily turn off potential readers?

Some people don't like it, a lot of people voted for it in cover contests. It is original art done by John Gallagher (https://www.uncannyknack.com/) and captures the mood of the first chapter.

Could you clarify these circumstances? I get it that you two live a great distance apart, but at some point someone must have gone somewhere. How does a Wisconsinite father an Aussie? (Logistics, not biology.)

There's a story here, I suspect.

There is...and without treading into what will end up being a war of words with "The other biological contributor", Morgen's Mom and I met while we were stationed in Iceland in 1982. She became pregnant, told me a tale (not mine sort of thing), and moved on. Had him in USA (FL) and moved to Aus with a man. Eventually she married him and he adopted Morgen (Hence the last name). Fast forward 18 years and I see her name on an Military reunion site. Give the old "Hope your life turned out well" post and get back the "You have a Son" message.

Fast forward four more years, and he and I still had not spoken, a lot of "dangling", "not yet", and games. I sent a care package to him, since he had joined the Aussie Military by then. I was editing a Motorcycle (Biker) magazine at the time to make some extra scratch.

I don't hear anything for awhile. Then I get a weird email from a guy in California. He says "I was told to find a biker mag guy that goes by "PiR8" and tell him to call this number." The number was like 12 characters long. I used to get "Put my naked girlfriend in your magazine" emails all the time, and the whole Russian scam call thing was hot at the time, so I shelved it.

A couple of weeks later, I get a message over Yahoo from his Mom and he is asking for my number.

My brain has one of those "connections" moments, so I find the email and check the time in Australia. I had to get international calling turned on my phone, but I call the number that morning.

"Hello?" (Aussie accent) "Hi, my name is Tom. They call me PiR8. I was told to call this number." "Yeah, mate, my name is Shannon, and I got a story for ya."

What was I gonna do? Cool Aussie accent and this guy wanted to tell me a story, whoever he was. So I listened. He continued "See, when I was 8, my Mum comes to me and says my Dad died. Just like that. I was sad, but what could I do? Anyway, years later, we're having a row, me and Mum, and she says 'Why don't you just go live with your father then' and she throws me his phone number."

Now, I have had some shitty things done to me, but what Shannon's Mom did to him? Bad. Anyway, Shannon continued,"So, anyway, me and my Dad got to talking and became best mates. So, with that out of the way, here's your son."

And he handed the phone to Morgen. First time we ever spoke. it still give me goosebumps.

Shannon was Morgen's roomie in the service, and had read the magazines I sent. He kept after Morgen that no matter what he had been told, or he thought he knew, I seemed like a pretty cool guy. That was it.

Yeah, that's a story.

...and hopefully with a happier ending. :)

Did you write this bit, in the 'about' part of your site?

"His time in the service (USAF), and riding with a rougher crowd, has left enough skeletons in his closet to crush a small car"...

Why/ how would closet skeletons crush a car? Doesn't make sense man...

You could have enough skeletons in your closet to fill a crypt or a graveyard, start your own medical school, but to CRUSH A CAR?!

Puts me off reading your book writing...

Apparently, you're not going to be a fan. I'm not marketing to make everybody happy. Those that like our (and my) approach, art,etc, will read, follow and buy. Those that don't? It is what it is. That's ok. We are who we are. If you don't like the books cover, you will hate "Kinked" Webisode 2 of PULPED! poster.

Of course, you could crack the preview in amazon (or the first chapter link) and see if the writing is your cup a tea or not.

I think it's great that you guys are writing together and also trying to fund a way to meet... but do you have an alternative plan of meeting up instead of waiting for success? If either of you can be a bit flexible you could get a cheap flight to finally meet... It seems sad to me that you have never yet met, whatever the circumstances that have kept you apart, but there are ways to meet sooner before it could be too late...

Our path to meeting has been curtailed in numerous ways over the last 10 years. Documentation, Finances, Personal lives, Influential interference from outside forces, etc.

We finally created a funnel (royalties) that would be under OUR control. A coffer solely used for this effort. Not a dime gets pulled from it that is not about making or marketing the book and putting those returns back in.

We didn't want to just ask people for help or charity, we wanted to give them something that would entertain them for a reasonable cost and use the profits to fund this venture.

I also wanted to give him an outlet for his creativity and springboard for an alternative income in the future as an author. He is a brilliant writer and, like any Father, I want him to succeed.

Where are you tailgating today? Who does the best fish fry in your area?

LOL!! Not originally being from the area (Lived in AZ until 2008), I am NOT a Packers fan...but these people are insane for them. My friggin' insurance agent has a Packers "mini-store" in his lobby selling their stuff.

I am a tried and true Steelers fan...because I could never get into the Cardinals..

Best fish fry up here? It's always the small joints. Pike Lake house. Another one used to be the Lamplight Pub. MJ Stevens as well. The rest all kind of blend together.

One more: Sprecher or New Glarus?

Sprecher. Boycotting New Glarus.

Leinenkugel's Oktoberfest has become one of my favs this time of year. But there are a lot of great micro brews up here now. Like the darker beers. Mud.

So, how many sex scenes are there in the book that feature the cat lady from the cover?

None. She only appears in the prologue. (You can read it in the Amazon "look inside" feature: https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Invidia-Maestru-Book-1-ebook/dp/B01L9DRW2U)

The only sex scene is PG and it's just plain ol' people.

"Unable to be in the same room, or even easily call to discuss minor plot or character points, planning and technology became their allies"...

Did you start writing this pre-Skype, pre-FaceTime, pre-Internet?!

The 16 hour time differences (he lives in Australia, me in the USA) and overseas call rates that were what hindered us. We had to have sessions where his work and my work allowed us to spend some time Skyping, messaging and texting.

And it was started pre-skype. We sent Text messages back and forth about a book idea phone (Even those cost more at the time).

It was back burnered until I published my first book "Threads" and realized he and I could really turn our ideas into a book.

I'm sure it's 14.5 hours difference, not 16? Between Adelaide and WI? I live in the UK and my best friend lives in Australia so I understand the constrictions of time differences...

Kudos for working on this together for so many years - I mean I was using Skype back in 2003!

Good luck and hopefully you guys can meet sooner rather than later...

thanks.

How do you feel about accusations that you stole your idea from 'Blood of Nvidia', a classic tale of woe depicting the struggle of a new PC gamer to install his first graphics card?

Yeah, We have listened to that accusation before. We would like to point out that any Video card that actually "Bled" probably harbored some illegal Alien Bio-ware that quite possibly might violate current stem cell research restrictions. Also, "Nvidia" is more like the French spelling of "Invidia", so who cares what they say, right?

But on a serious note, we took Invidia, the Goddess of envy or jealousy that is associated with the Evil Eye, for our Alien race name. It fit for our ancient race of Aliens, since immortal life is what they sought and found. They also took so much from the ancient races they conquered. The Grays also use a form of bastardized Greek as their language...so they have visited us before....

Of course, the video card nerds were all over me that there would be confusion, but if you search for "Blood of Invidia" in Google, we own most of the first two pages of searches due to my marketing efforts (even on my small budget).

I cant wait for the prequel "Sweat of AyyEmDee" to come out

We looked into that title, but it turned out it was already part of a workout video collection from the 90's. As was "Dancing to the oldies with Ray Deon."

How do you publish your book? (Aside from doing an AMA)

Self-Published through Amazon KDP (Kindle) as well as Paperback in Createspace.

We also were able to get the paperback version into Barnes and Noble's catalog.

The process is straight ahead, but professionals have to be involved in the editing and cover art (Which some people don't like, but the targeted audience has responded to positively).

We did get a note from our editor that the book was taxing to edit. He kept getting caught up in the story and had to read chapters two and three times to look for any minor issues.

Because it is self-published, all promotion and marketing expenses are born by us. We earn one fan, and reader, at a time.

Ass or tits?

That's easy. Take out "or" and make it "and". NEXT!!!!